Waiting
How does it feel to wait? This is the mantra or hook I was confronted with this morning while taking a new yoga class. Recently I took the leap from On Demand classes offered through the yoga studio I joined when we moved to our home in 2018, to taking classes through the Peloton App. The classes offered through Peloton share common traits with classes I’ve taken at the Y, in the city we lived in prior to moving half way across the country, and the studio I belonged to for more than three years, where I live now. It’s been three weeks since I made the change. Three weeks of struggling to adapt. I selected this morning’s class because the accompanying music had a gospel theme. Yoga set to gospel is an out of the box pairing.
Is it worth it?
I pride myself a on being patient. As an artist I have learned to wait. If I don’t get something the first time, I will try and try again. For example, FMQ didn’t come naturally to me. I struggled with it for years, many years. I took classes, read articles and watched videos. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon Leah Day’s Quilt Along class that I broke through my FMQ angst and became passionate about the quilting, not just the piecing side, of my work. Because commitment and perseverance could be my middle name, I did every single lesson Leah offered in the Quilt Along. How does it feel to wait? Agony. Is it worth the wait? Yes! What keeps me going when I have to the wait? The knowledge that whether the wait is five minutes or many years, I almost always get there and I am so grateful I took the time.
I am linking up with Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Fridays.
That is an interesting pairing of music with yoga! I like the question of is it worth the wait. I like to think that patience is rewarded.
Yes, Angela, patience should be rewarding. How many of us are patient though? We are eager to reach the next milestone or find out how things end. There is a humorous in outcome, but serious in intent study to determine young children’s patience, called the marshmallow test. Children are left along in a room with a marshmallow, told the tester would be back in a few minutes and if the marshmallow was still there they would get two marshmallows. There was nothing else in the room, but the table, chairs and the single marshmallow. The vast majority could not resist that marshmallow. The process of creating art comes up against this question so frequently, it seemed worth asking.
Your work shows that patience is rewarded. I too have struggled with fmq and decided that I will use it only when the occasion warrants it.
FMQ isn’t for everyone. What used to have my shoulders hunched up to my ears and my jaw clenched, now feels soothing, like sitting basking in sunshine. There is something about repetition and the muscle memory that kicks in with quilting I find very relaxing – OK until the thread starts giving me conniptions.
Thanks for dropping by and the positive feedback on my quilting.
Yes, those lessons were so worth it! Your quilting on this is extraordinary!
Thank you, Norma. I am equally impressed with your hand stitching.
Oh Gwyned; this piece is shaping up to be another stunner! I love how your tone-on-tone quilting allows the quilt to reveal itself in stages — First the piecing lines make their impact, and then you step closer and discover the additional layer of detail in the quilting stitches. So beautiful and peaceful. Thanks for linking up with me for TGIFF!
Rebecca, I’m blushing, here. Such kind and thoughtful view of my work. I am determined to post more frequently on TGIFF, next year. I may not have a weekly finish in the traditional sense, but I at least finish a day in the studio with progress made each week. In this case I finished – well almost – quilting the pink/lavender section of the cloud. I discovered a section I missed and did that yesterday. This week I may just call settling on what motif to quilt the sky a finish.